h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I've been to Stonehenge about 10 years ago and it was much more restricted than you describe: there were tickets and fences. But I don't remember it clearly so I wouldn't volunteer for the 'visit' description, as Llama puts it.

http://www.stonehenge.org.uk/time/timeline.shtml has a summary of how things have changed and a bit about the recent plans (but this seems to stop about 2 years ago!)
English Heritage have more general info: http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/stonehenge
and http://www.stonehenge-avebury.net/ has stuff about why it was built.

Ther new proposals are set out at http://www.thestonehengeproject.org/index.shtml

There are zillions more sites, of course but these are quite informative.

For those without internet access, the plans involve returning the landscape around the stones to their previous condition by putting the A303 into a tunnel and moving the visitor centre and parking away from the World Heritage site.

Thanks, but I ought to contact M.c.B. as well, as there some interesting points in that essay as well.
I have several projects on hand which I ought to get on with first. Also I am hoping to get some notes and a book on megaliths back tomorrow at some time.
Watermusic

My original entry on Stonehenge, A1903457 , doesn't include info on what it's like to visit it, because I have never been there. But it has information on the construction, as well as a small amount of insight into the people who built it.

But it would be great if those who have been there could work on something that gives a first hand experience of what it's like today to visit it. Do they give tours there? If so, what kinds of things did/would you learn? etc.

=)

Maddy

We must get together some time! My information is mostly from a television programme that I watched a couple of weeks ago, so is up to date stuff.
Watermusic

The first time I went, many years ago, there was no fence and you could go right up to the stones. Inevitably they were getting damaged (how anyone can think it cool to carve their name in an ancient monument I find truly mind-b*****ing, but that's a different topic) so these days they are roped off. The first reaction that most people seem to have is that they are much smaller than they'd imagined.

The present visitor facilities involve parking on one side of the road and walking under a subway up to the stones. There's a book/gift shop and a sort of "timeline" display showing the relative spacing of historical events, starting with the 'henge.

Last time I went it was absolutely hissing down with rain, and we had some Thai visitors with us - not really sure what they made of it. Visitors from the US tend to scoff at the inadequacy of the facilities, but my concern would be if they tried to turn it into Disneyhenge. The new proposals seem to propose moving everthing away to set the stones in something approaching their original setting ie in the middle of an empty Salisbury plain (rather than sat in the V created by 2 A-roads!).

One of the best things about this forum is watching how discussions evolve around the topics. I'm blown away by this one and so I think this should be bumped up to a Collaborative Topic next week. Give it some exposure on the Front Page and see what we can compile on this subject.

(Of course, the mention of Julian Cope earlier might have helped to swing this - Natalie's a fan )

OOOOOOOH! Front Page, eh?!

Hang on, did I miss it?

Nope. Two days' time.

Editorial Note: This conversation has been moved from 'Challenge h2g2' to 'Stonehenge'.

Thanks to everyone for suggesting this as a topic. Let's see if it gets mroe attention from our Front Page.

Hi


I live not too far from the henge, but I have to say that I find Avebury more impressive. Maybe that's because you can walk around the stones and hug them if you're so inclined, or because there's a good pub there.

I'm interested in how people perceive the summer solstice shenanigans at Stonehenge - I've been there at midsummer twice now, and last year was a joke. There were so many police, floodlights and burger vans.
Doesn't seem to be in the spirit of the thing really.

Mind you, at least it enables people to get closer to the stones without having to pay to go on the private tour.

"you can walk around the stones and hug them if you're so inclined"

That's what stonehenge used to be like though - before everyone else got to know about it and it was caged and turned (back) into a cult worship thing of rival cults with no real connection to the original users.

I grew up just over the hill from Stonehenge and first visited them in about 1967 when they were some stones in a field. They did ask you to close the gate as you left!

In my teenage years I worked in "The Stonehenge Tearooms" which is the slightly seedy cafe/tea bar which took up half of the subterranean visitor centre. Worked there for about tw summers selling overpriced tea in polystyrene cups to thousands of visitors. I strongly suspect that the American visitors found us to be a profoundly unDisney experience. At that time the cost of going through the tunnel to the other side of the road was £4 and my wages were about £1 an hour. The other half of the visitor centre was a somewhat overpriced gift shop selling posters, keyrings etc.

The solstice celebrations attracted an interesting mix. The Druids arrived in time for sunrise over the heal stone. The most memorable thing about the Druids was that Bill Roach (Ken Barlow from Coronation Street) was among their number. I seem to recall him leading the procession on at least one occassion.

In latter years there was a concert packed with progressive rock style hippy bands. The years that I worked there security was provided by the Wessex chapter of the Hells Angels. It was an interesting experience being a spotty teenage in a cheap white nylon jacket carting bags of rubbish past the assembled ranks of villians and cutthroats.

The stones themselves have been cordoned off for some years to preserve them from damage by visitors. It's interesting how preservation goes because at least one earlier (victorian??) episode saw stones which had fallen being put back in place and I recall at least one of the standing stones having a conctrete repair section in it.

The latest plans are all about seperating the stones from the plebian masses and the influence of the motor car. The last scheme I saw had a large section of the A303 which runs withion about half a mile of the stones covered over in a cut and cover tunnel. This would leave the henge standing in splendid isolation and the visitors centre would effectively end up about half a mile away from the stone circle.

There is another interesting site very close by, at Bulford. Woodhenge is a smaller, older site where a similar arrangement of artefeacts has been found but these were wooden, and therefore have lasted less well and are much less visually impressive. They are date as being somewhat older than Stonehenge and are similarly enigmatic in that no single clear explanation of their purpose is accepted.

Personally I suspect that Stonehenge fulfilled a similar role to places like the colliseum, the Doges Palace and Buckingham palace. A sort of tribal "mines bigger than yours" used to intimidate and impress travellers and emmissaries from other nations.

its a calender its as eazy as that

Ha ha... a book im writing @ the moment has reference 2 stonehenge...
it is a portal 2 another world...

any comments or objections 2 that??

It's a free country and you can write what you like!
(OK there may be 2 less than totally correct statements there, but let's not dwell on that...)
Portal to another world? Doesn't sound totally original to me. Stargate?
And there was a Doctor Who story which involved a stone circle and aliens etc. It was based on the Rollwright Stones, which is a very strange place - gave me the creeps when I visited, and it's said there are strange ultrasonic readings or suchlike. The idea has also used by Terry Pratchett (Lords and Ladies, I think?) and probably countless others.
If you're going to have a portal into another world I would have thought Stonehenge was a bit obvious.
But an interesting bit for our fledgling Guide Entry - influence on popular culture.

Stonehenge may have been a portal to another world - one theory I've seen has Stonehenge at the end of a ceremonial path from life to death (starts at Woodhenge, follows the river).

Therefore it could be a funerary temple for conducting burial services at before the body is disposed of.

I notice no one ever found evidence of feasting there.

Also, a Saxon criminal was beheaded and buried there. Whatever his crime was it must have been bad - burial outside consecrated ground was supposed to send you to limbo or somesuch, but buirial ata pagan site? It looks like the chose to exile him to hell as well as kill him.

Or maybe the burial was to consecrate the site for ritual purposes?

Wasn't it common practice (at some point in the distant past, reeaaaally not sure when )for all new structures to have the bones/body of a person in the foundations? For placating the gods/local spirits?

Or am I just imagining things now?

Certain cultures, including some in ancient Britain, did bury bodies in certain buildings. Whether this was to consecrate the building or simply to keep the bodies safe from wild beasts is hard to say.

An interesting note on the comment about carving names into stone: I went to see the Egyptian exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York a few months back and several of the ancient stones were carved with the name of the 19th century explorers who had found them. It was like seeing two layers of history at once. On the other hand, random yokels are unlikely to have names as important in 100 years as the first Egyptologists are today.

I think the comment about Stonehenge being a 'mine's bigger than yours' type object is closest to the truth. As I posted in another thread here, its one thing to have a stone calender, but its another thing to have the world's largest stone calender. A small model of the same thing would work just as well for the expressed purpose, but there is also the larger societal purpose to consider.

'Elidor' by Alan Garner (back in the 60s or 70s) also had a ring of stones as a portal to a different world. And so did Tolkien in The Lord of the Rings (on the Barrow Downs). It's standard Fantasy stuff and very boring at this stage.